Nov. 27, 1902. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



761 



in the business as either Dr. Gallup or Mr. Alley, claims 

 better results by the dipped-cup method ; and either one 

 boasted of his own success in producing the best queens ; 

 and their articles have a tendency to make us poor honey- 

 producers believe that queens reared by their plans are the 

 only ones good for anything. 



I do not blame them for speaking a good vford for their 

 own business, but after trying the three different methods 

 in question, I have found out that for the honey-producer 

 the best and cheapest queens can be reared by the Gallup 

 plan. I do not mean to say that every queen reared under 

 the swarming or supersedure impulse is perfect. O, no ! 

 But I mean to say if the very best stock is used for the pur- 

 pose, and an abundance of stores being on hand or supplied, 

 the result will be a success. I will pay $25.00 to any queen- 

 breeder who can rear a better queen by either the Doolittle 

 or the Alley plan (from either his or my stock, if he so de- 

 sires) than I can, or the bees themselves, according to the 

 Gallup or natural way. What is the use of talking or writ- 

 ing ? The "proof of the pudding lies in the eating." After 

 having bought dozens of queens from different breeders, to- 

 gether with hundreds of colonies of bees, and carefully not- 

 ing the difference in the amount of honey they gather, I 

 ought to know whereof I speak. And, which is the best 

 queen ? Now, I wish to say right here, that it is not color, 

 or any other quality, excepting the amount of honey, and 

 consequently the amount of money received, per colony. I 

 have had colonies of bees gather 8 supers of 28 sections each 

 in one season ; and in 1898 I had 38 colonies averge 100 

 pounds of comb honey to the colony, together with doubling 

 their number in increase. How's that for naturally-reared 

 queens ? 



Now I wish to give the beginner, and those not so much 

 advanced as the professional queen-breeders, a simple 

 method by which they can rear as good a queen as there is 

 in the land. The method is as follows : 



Rear a few queens under the swarming impulse — from 

 eight to a dozen of the very best stock you have, marking 

 in your diary or on the number-tag of each queen the num- 

 ber of the mother she was reared from. The following sea- 

 son test as to their honey-gathering qualities, and after 

 having found which ones are the best and most uniform, 

 rear from their mother the supply for your yard as follows: 



Early in the spring, if the particular colony in question 

 should for some cause or other not be very strong, make it 

 so. Coax and crowd the colony to start to swarming. When 

 the queen-cells are begun in the colony, put a queen-exclud- 

 ing sheet under the entire hive. Now watch for the queen- 

 cells to become ripe, and take out the ripe queen-cells as fast 

 as they become ripe. I have taken as many as 50 queen- 

 cells from a single colony by this plan. More queen-cells 

 will be built if a brood-comb be cut in two lengthwise about 

 half way. The brood-comb should be an old one — a black 

 one if it can be had — as the bees do not like to build it down 

 as they will a new one, but will start a lot of queen-cells on 

 the lower edge. In this way you can keep on rearing 

 queens as long as the colony insists on swarming, and good 

 ones. 



Never select a queen for breeding that has simply a 

 large force of bees and 10 or 15 combs of brood, for that is 

 no evidence of her being a good one. The only test that I 

 know of is the amount of honey they have gathered, and if 

 comb honey is desired the whiteness and the plumpness of 

 their sections. 



I have had large colonies in the spring like Mr. Doolit- 

 tle wrote of years ago, that promised to outstrip everything, 

 but proved worthless in the end as honey-gatherers. But 

 the longevity of a queen is an important factor, and Dr. 

 Gallup is right when he says it takes 2 years to test a 

 queen. But for a breeder it takes 3 years ; and if the 

 queen should be dead before her daughters are tested, she 

 would be of no use ; but if the queens are reared rightly, 

 they will nearly all live 3 years, a good many 4, and a very 

 few five ; at least such is mj' experience. 



Of course, I allow my queens to lay to their full capac- 

 ity, using 40 to 50 combs during the height of the season, 

 and that may have something to do with shortening their 

 lives. I am using the 10-frame Langstroth hive, and have 

 to tier them up 4 and 5 stories high, and I wish now 

 that I had a 12-frame hive, as S stories are too high for con- 

 venience, and 4 are not high enough to accommodate the 

 most of my queens. Chippewa Co., Wis. 



The Premiums offered this week are well worth working 

 for. Look at them. 



Questions and Answers. 



COWOOCTBD BY 



DH. O. O. atlLLBH. Afaren|ro, HI. 



[The Qaettlona may be mailed to the Bee Jonrnal office, or to Dr. Miller 



direct, when he will answer them here. Please do not ask tiu 



Doctor to send answers br malL — Editox.1 



Wintering Bees In a Garret. 



My kitchen is one-story, ceiled (not plastered) above. 

 The garret is therefore warm. Would that be a good place in 

 which to winter a few colonies, putting the hives against 

 the wall and cutting a hole so they can fly at will ? I have 

 a weak colony (happened to be unfortunate). In this weak 

 colony is a queen that I prize very highly. If I put this 

 colony in the warm garret, with hive or brood-chamber 

 space reduced, will she, or can she, be induced to rear brood 

 there, this month or next ? They have plenty of stores. 



, KEN'TUCKY. 



Answers. — I don't know enough to answer your ques- 

 tion. It is barely possibly that bees would winter first-class 

 shape in that garret, but it would be best to try it first on 

 a small scale. 



It will be difficult to get that colony to rear brood 

 through November and December, and it would almost 

 certainly be of no advantage if they should. The quieter 

 they can be kept the better. 



The Queen's Laying Brood-Nest Covering for Winter 

 — Langstrotli Hive. 



1. A queen deposits eggs in worker and drone cells. 

 Does the location of the egg produce a male or female bee ? 

 or has the queen the capacity or ability to lay a drone-egg 

 in a drone-cell, and a worker-egg in a worker-cell ? 



2. What is the best covering for the brood-nest in win- 

 ter, a cloth or thin board ? 



3. A queen lays tvro eggs. One hatches a worker-bee, 

 the other a drone. Now, the bees make a queen of the 

 worker-egg, and she is fertilized by the drone — her brother. 

 Will their stock be as good as if the queen and drone had 

 come from different stock ? 



4. Are the Langstroth hive and frame as good as 

 others ? Kentucky. 



Answers. — 1. I don't know. Opinions are divided. 

 Some think there is volition on the part of the queen, and 

 some think there is some kind of mechanical compression 

 or something of the sort that obliges the queen to lay in 

 each cell the appropriate egg. 



2. For outdoors it is generally believed that it is better 

 to use the cloth so as to allow of upward ventilation. For 

 the cellar it makes little or no difference if everything is 

 open enough below. 



3. The general answer will be " No." 



4. That depends on what is meant b^- Langstroth hive 

 and frame. One answer to the question is that there is no 

 better, for every movable- frame hive is a Langstroth. 



Cellar-Wintering— Robbing and tlie Robbed. 



1. I have kept bees for 5 years, and I now have about 20 

 colonies. I winter them in the cellar, where the temperature 

 is from 40 to 45 degrees. It is a good cellar to winter bees 

 in, but this year I have 2 colonies that are very short of 

 stores. How will it do to put a super on each of them with 

 ten pounds of honey ? This honey is stored in pound 

 boxes. 



2. How can I see that the bees are robbing? And how 

 can I see when they are robbed ? Minnesota. 



Answers. — 1. It will be all right ;/ you are sure the bees 

 will reach the honey. The danger is that that they will re- 

 main on the combs and starve with the honey out of reach 

 above them. Indeed, they will be pretty sure to do so if 

 they do not carry the honey down before being taken into 

 the cellar. You might put the sections in frames, and then 

 put the frames of sections in the hive close up to the bees. 

 If eight of the sections will not go in a brood-frame, cut 



